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| Government Corruption |
| Educating The Stupid On How Audits Work In Real Life |
| 2025-02-19 |
Fun, useful, and informative. A taste — go read the whole thing. [MonsterHunterInternational] Watching everybody I know on the left pontificating about the proper way to conduct audits, after getting their accounting degrees from the University of Internet this week, is absolute cringe for me.Guys, listen, I say this with love… You don’t know dick about shit and it’s fucking embarrassing. Just stop. You sound like idiots. So now, as a guy who used to be an auditor, who has defended companies from dozens of audits from different government agencies, I’ll try to correct some of your incredibly stupid NPC talking points you keep endlessly barfing up. First off, you need to know there’s a difference between an outside audit and an internal audit. An outside audit is when somebody who isn’t part of your company comes in and checks your stuff. This could be one of the fifty something government agencies that audit people/businesses, or this could be an outside CPA firm making sure you are in compliance for some reason (like the company is publicly traded). I’ll talk more about what CPAs are in a minute. Then there are internal audits, where the person in charge has his own people audit his company, looking for problems, hoping to have everything in order before those 3rd party outsiders show up to check, or searching for fraud, waste, and abuse… You know, those annoying things that tend to screw you over and put you out of business. That’s the kind of auditing I mostly did. An internal audit is what Donald Trump (the man in charge) is doing now, by having his people (DOGE) audit the executive branch he runs. CEOs and owners do this all the time. You do not need to be a Certified PUBLIC Accountant to be part of an internal audit team. In fact, even most CPA firms, auditing the biggest corporations in the world, the majority of the auditors doing the grunt work are NOT CPAs. Most government auditors are not CPAs. CPA is a particular certification required for a few particular types of accounting, and that isn’t even close to what DOGE is doing. Also most of the auditors for those big firms are YOUNG. They are usually around 24, because those are the dudes that the big firms can work 80 hours a week and they won’t just keel over and die. They do this kind of work BEFORE taking the CPA exam if they want to go that route, and most of them don’t, because they end up going from auditing into some other form of specialty. These young auditors make up a team which is usually supervised by an NCO type who has got 5-7 years of experience (and may or may not be a CPA depending on the industry) and they all answer to somebody higher up, who has got the 10-20 years of experience. This will of course vary on the size of the company. You do NOT need to be an accountant to be an auditor. Anybody who says this is a total dumb ass with zero grasp of how any of this shit works in real life. The people who make up your audit team are recruited from whatever skill sets are necessary to audit that particular system. I (the accountant) have been on audit teams with IT guys, programmers, lawyers, and even machinists. (why machinists, because I was auditing a factory, and I could count the parts, but I couldn’t tell you if the parts were bullshit or not) So if you are auditing a computer system, then your auditors would obviously require computer people. Fucking duh, morons. Holy shit. The reason most auditors come from an accounting background is because most fraud, waste, and abuse comes from fuckery on the books. But if the fuckery is taking place in the particular systems before they get to the financials, that’s where we bring in systems experts. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #8 Thinking back to my training (20 years ago), I recall hearing if you were going to do a really deep dive, on a big outfit (like GM), relevant experience is useful. But the auditor could bring (one of more) subject-matter experts. Such audits might be weeks long. Mine were all 4-6 hours. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2025-02-19 11:45 |
| #7 I was a quality manager (and auditor) for transit and highway projects - internal audits of my employer (contractor) and external audits of suppliers. The Transit owner insisted I pass a 40 hour auditors course. There was no financial component. Always tedious, hard work, but often fun. I think... I asked, in writing, did you do what you said you would do? (compared to your approved quality plan.) Show me. Write a report. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2025-02-19 11:18 |
| #6 I wish Larry would do something similar for the profoundly and malevolently stupid on how personal financial information is (or is not) confidential/secret. I've known for decades that the feds know almost to the penny how much I'm worth, where my savings are, and how to destroy all that in a few keystrokes. I'm pretty sure none knows how my change I have in my pockets at the moment... |
| Posted by: q 2025-02-19 05:20 |
| #5 E6 - enlisted rank, Staff sergeant 11B - infantryman ROTC - Reserve Officer Training Corps |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2025-02-19 04:43 |
| #4 What? 3AM! Now we know that Rantburg timestamps comments, EASTERN. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2025-02-19 04:37 |
| #3 For all that you have done, dear Whiskey Mike, and do now, we are thoroughly thankful. There are plenty here who will know what that particular combination of letters and numbers means, but I shall have to be impressed on general principle. ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2025-02-19 04:24 |
| #2 Sorry about the typo(s). Three AM here. |
| Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2025-02-19 03:42 |
| #1 I love Larry Correia. A real no bullshit guy. He is 100% on target regarding needing to be an accountant. I was an E-6 11B4P; by definition 'not an accountant'. I was on an IG team auditing some prestigious colleges' ROTC units. We found that one such college had hundreds of ROTC students that had never signed their contracts. So the result was most ROTC students got the Army to pay for their tuition and they then blew off the Army upon graduation. Worse, the officers tried their utmost to pressure the IG team to NOT report this. Waste, fraud and abuse much? I was a straight arrow on this shit. Mutchly hated. As if anyone cares I suppose. I did my little bit. |
| Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2025-02-19 03:41 |